


scatter the grace in your eyes

by judaciously



Category: Top of the Round (Podcast)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:02:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27096223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/judaciously/pseuds/judaciously
Summary: A recontextualization of episode 18. Talice meets Lulu, and doesn't understand why she finds her presence so upsetting.or: Talice likes women and is too emotionally repressed to admit it.
Relationships: Chaz/Lulu, Talice/Lulu
Kudos: 2





	scatter the grace in your eyes

**Author's Note:**

> stand and face me, my love,  
> and scatter the grace in your eyes.

When Talice first met Lulu, her first instinct had been to turn on her, to draw her weapons, and fight. This wasn’t a reaction that lasted long; Talice didn’t know her name yet, but she didn’t need to know when her body did all of the talking. If Talice’s skin had been a different color, the blush spreading across her face and up her ears would have been obvious. She was not the only one affected; Chaz reacted immediately, as he always did when attractive people were around.

She didn’t like his tone. She didn’t like the way he stepped forward, leaning into Lulu’s space as they talked, or the way she responded and directed her answers towards him instead of Talice. But it was almost worse when those answers were directed at her; she felt herself flush more, felt her balance faltering, and she grew snappish and belligerent because of it. She didn’t take her hands away from her daggers.

If either of the others had been acting off, Talice would have suspected poisoned air, piped in from somewhere they couldn’t see. But Chaz was all smiles, and Se’ku was his normal unflappable self, which wasn’t fair because Talice’s hands were curling into claws and Lulu was just _standing_ there, hip cocked, eyebrow arched, dress form-fitting and then suddenly flowing, decorated with laces and studs in places that made Talice’s gaze dart and skitter.

She had to turn away and look at armor, at the weapons. Lulu’s voice, deep as it was, drifted heavy when she spoke. It was a relief when Chaz and Se’ku dropped into a tangent, about cows and—and armor? Or something? She was finding it hard to pay attention, and she chanced a look over at Lulu.

Lulu had a hand over her face, and Talice couldn’t see the expression behind it, and it made her, again, a little more anxious. She said she was leaving, and Talice had to pipe up, “Wait, no, no, no, stay,” and change the subject, because—because Lulu was suspicious, and Talice didn’t want her out of her sight.

She said something about armor, because this was a tannery, and what else would there be but leather armor. “Tell me about this armor. Is it better than what I’m wearing?” she asked, and she stiffened when Lulu dragged her gaze up and down her, appraising.

“It’s newer,” Lulu offered, and her tone made Talice’s stiffen some.

“What does that mean for me?” she questioned, digging for something she didn’t know how to explain.

What she got was a stringing insult that honestly felt out of nowhere. “Nothing. Unless you like your old, tattered garbage.” Talice’s eyes widened some, but Lulu’s attention had turned to Se’ku, who was talking now. She could only manage, weakly, “You’re pretty rude.” Chaz was ogling Lulu again, or maybe still, and Talice yanked Lulu’s attention back to herself: “So what do you have worth my _time_?”

Their banter returned, bringing it with some relief, and for a second it was just them, in the back of the shop, standing much too close, looking over enchanted armor. Talice didn’t want the conversation to end. She asked, “Do you have anything else?” and this time Lulu left her waiting. Her absence was a breath of air. Talice could gather herself, feeling ridiculous, and riled, and angry, and she turned almost with a huff back to Se’ku and Chaz. Their silliness was grounding, and it wasn’t long before Talice felt some of the tension in her drain out. It left her a little hollow.

To Chaz, still looking at the armor, Talice asked, “What kind of vibe do you get off this Lulu?” She cast her eyes skyward when he inevitably replied, “A very sexual one.”

She sighed. “That’s not what I’m saying. She’s up to something.” —there was no reason Talice should be so nervous around her otherwise. Warning bells were going off in her head, and she kept wondering what Lulu was doing, when she’d return; she kept casting glances towards the back, waiting, waiting.

But Lulu, it seemed, was busy. Talice’s stare lingered on her back, hunched over and digging around a box, and her patience broke. She stepped away from Chaz and towards Lulu.

Her steps were quiet as she approached, and she settled herself against the door, a forcibly casual pose, and she caught Lulu’s attention with a drawled, “Problem?”

She got back, “Potentially,” in that husky voice, a sigh that drifted past Talice’s ears. She was explaining herself—attempting to, at least—when Chaz interrupted them, mimicking Talice’s pose against the door. A flash of irritation lanced up her spine.

Lulu ignored them both, leaving the box behind to flip through hanging-up cloaks. The victory in her tone as she found what she was looking for was. It was. Too much. And Talice was. Too much.

“What is that?” she asked, switching to a different topic so she could stop herself pursuing the one in her head.

“Displacement cloak,” Lulu answered, and then, “a thousand gold,” to Talice’s inquiry about the price.

“Where’d you get it?” she asked, and it came out much ruder than she wanted it to. She dug herself in deeper with, “‘Cause I know you didn’t make it,” which wasn’t what she’d wanted to say. She’d much rather have said something like _did you make that, because it’d be cool if you did_ , except that kind of thing was lame and it wasn’t Talice, regardless of how badly she wanted to speak it.

She stiffened when Lulu gave her a look and leaned towards her. Her breath was hot over the shell of her ear, over skin that naturally tended towards a cooler temperature. Lulu murmured, “I think you know where I got it,” and Talice was deeply confused. Was that an innuendo? Did Talice know? What did she know, what did Lulu mean, and why was she straightening back up, hold on—Oh. Oh, wait, wait. Talice suddenly realized what she meant, and a wave of foolishness crashed down on her.

“Are you one of ours?” she asked, frowning, and Lulu’s gesture made her focus on the choker, on the raven there, and she couldn’t help her gaze from glancing lower, where—no. Decorum, Talice, where was it?

That nervousness was only ramping up. “What are you doing in this city?” Talice demanded, but Lulu’s casual candor never wavered. Despite Talice’s demands, Lulu gave vague non-answers that helped not at all.

She was under the Cobalt. It made sense, then, why Talice hadn’t recognized her. And she was human—Talice had been with the Conspiracy for so long that people were bound to slip by her notice, though that didn’t mean she had to like it. Being thrown on her ass by a stranger who shouldn’t have been a stranger was deeply unwelcomed. 

“Anything else I should know?” she asked, wanting something more, but not sure what, exactly, that was. Ultimately, she got nothing satisfying at all.

“Go check on Se’ku,” Talice said to Chaz, when he attempted to interrupt. That irrational annoyance was only ramping up. He didn’t need to interrupt when she was trying to figure out what was going on here, what was going on with Lulu, and what she was doing to be making Talice so nervous.

She managed to get back to their conversation, but she was rattled, and she said something mildly obvious that got her a bland, “Congrats,” from Lulu. It made her stiffen further, and she shot back, “Wow, thank you. You’re... real fun to be around.” Lulu’s lip curled slightly, and Talice was quick to try to move on. By now, though, Lulu had grown surly and uncooperative, and then Talice made another mistake: she tried to pull rank.

Instantly Lulu closed off even more. Her eyebrows raised. She gave a haughty, “Wow, good for you,” and Talice responded to cattiness with cattiness of her own.

“Wow, look at you, still alive,” she said. Lulu wasn’t impressed. “Well, I know you’re here now,” which was—was that good? She knew where Lulu was. It meant she could come back to see her. She could visit. Maybe figure out why, exactly, Lulu had thrown her off balance so much.

They were running out of conversation. Talice dragged their talks back to armor, and to the cloak. She tried for a discount. It didn’t work. Jarred, Talice turned away to finally end their talk. “Pleasure doing business with you,” she said, and wanted to throttle herself. She had meant that to be at least neutral, and her tone _wasn’t neutral even in the slightest._

Lulu’s eyes narrowed. She stepped back Talice, towards Chaz, and touched him on the nose. She was _flirting_ with him. Talice’s hackles went up yet again.

“Do not trust her,” she implored Chaz, but he wasn’t listening, not at all. He was following Lulu, and so Talice had to follow him, desperate, while he began to flirt.

“We should probably go,” she insisted, and Lulu turned a cat-eyed gaze on her. Talice wanted to yank Chaz right out of the door.

But Se’ku was focused on cloaks, oblivious to the tension between the other three, and he pulled all their attention to him. He had on the displacement cloak, swishing it around himself, and Lulu asked him how much gold he had. Not nearly enough, Talice knew, not even close to the thousand that Lulu had said, but then. “I’ll give it to you for fifteen,” Lulu told him, and her eyes darted back towards Talice.

It only took Talice a moment to realize the deep insult she’d just been dealt. It had been deliberate, and calculated, and Talice would almost have admired it if she wasn’t so offended and—and—hurt? Was she hurt? She felt like her feelings were hurt, which was. Ridiculous. It was ridiculous. She could hardly speak.

She made one last attempt to draw Lulu’s attention back to herself, but it backfired in a spectacular way; five seconds later, Lulu had Chaz’s hand in hers, and Talice had to physically move them apart.

“Chaz,” she pleaded. “Don’t go with her.”

“Why?” he asked, innocent as ever. Talice kept her expression about the same as usual, but inside she was almost panicking.

“B—Because,” she said, and took his other hand. “It’s… my birthday.” Lulu responded by kissing Chaz’s cheek, and Talice had to struggle to find something, anything, to say to prevent what was seeming like more and more of an inevitability.

“Talice, I’ll be right back!” Chaz said, and dropped her hand. Another small bolt of panic went up her. She moved to stand in front of Lulu. They locked eyes.

“The more the merrier,” Lulu said, and Talice had to fight not to react to that.

“Do not harm him,” she said, and part of it was _don’t hurt my friend_ and part of it was _don’t be the type who would hurt him_.

“We’ll see,” Lulu said, a smirk on her lips. She was pulling Chaz with her, not that she had to; he was going quite willingly.

“I need to get out of here,” Talice told Se’ku, when he asked her what was wrong. “Before I burn it down.” Her tone was flat even with those words, but that didn’t reflect the roiling anxiety inside of her.

“Let’s go,” he said, frowning, sensing her panic even if he didn’t understand, and trying to ward it off. It helped. Their silly little conversation helped, just a little, but as they left the shop she wondered, quietly to herself: Who was she more angry at, Lulu or Chaz?

In the end, she decided on herself.

* * *

Lulu knew who Talice was the moment she walked in. How couldn’t she? She’d spent years hearing about her, her exploits and victories and the whispers about her accomplishments and where they’d led her. She’d even seen her sometimes from a distance, pointed out by people who’d been around longer, but never close up, not once. Not until now.

There she stood, just adjusting her blindfold, protecting her light-sensitive eyes. They were silver, almost metallic, though the color was dulled somewhat in the dimness of the tannery Lulu had been stationed at. She got close enough to see that—that was a thing of note, how close Lulu came to her.

She wanted to say how good it was to finally meet her, but there were people here that Lulu didn’t know—some tall half-elf and a halfling—and Lulu knew better than to speak too much. She wanted, badly, to control Talice’s first impression of her.

But then that first impression turned jagged around them both. Talice’s expression was pinched, unhappy, directed towards her, despite that Lulu had said barely anything. She could understand Talice’s hands on her daggers. She couldn’t understand the angry tone.

Her own hackles rose then. She had waited for a long time to finally meet Talice, to speak to her, and there was no chance to be candid here. Lulu had never had a chance to control this meeting. If Talice was angry at her—for what, she had no idea—then she would give her something to be angry about. If this woman, this elf, was going to dislike her, then Lulu would earn it.

But despite Talice’s dislike of her, she kept getting closer, stepping into Lulu’s space and engaging with her. There was a tug of war happening with her attention; the half-elf (Chaz, she learned) was obviously interested in talking with her, but every time he started, Talice carefully steered it back to her. That annoyed expression never faded, but neither did their conversation. Talice, it seemed, was determined to keep Lulu’s eyes on her.

So Lulu gave it to her. She dragged her eyes up and down Talice’s form, appraising her outfit—and insulting it—but in the back of her mind she was noting her stature, her slimness, as if she’d never really had a good meal in her. Her fingers were thin. Lulu wondered how they’d slot with hers. She turned away to go look in the back, digging for something she thought might, perhaps, impress her.

It helped her catch her breath, too. Her hands were shaking some, her nerves were heightened, and she was almost scared. Even now she could feel eyes on her, and eventually she had to turn to meet those gazes, empty-handed, but in time to remember exactly where she’d left that displacement cloak.

She was right that Talice was impressed by it; there was a spark of interest in her eyes, like a flash of moonlight, but the triumph soured under the dismissal Talice gave her. Lulu worked at a tannery. Why on earth would Talice think she wasn’t the tanner herself? She wasn’t, but it was rude to assume she didn’t have the skills anyway.

The insult stung enough that she leaned in, the furthest she’d gotten into Talice’s space, next to her ear, to whisper, “I think you know where I got it.” As she moved back, she watched Talice’s eyes widen, and another bit of that triumph came back, the hope that she’d impressed her. It rattled her, the idea that one of their own had been right under her nose and she hadn’t even noticed, despite the raven around Lulu’s neck. 

Lulu had to fight down a thrill of achievement. Now, then, they were finally on equal footing. Talice no longer had to be so untrusting, so suspicious. They were on the same side.

This day, however, seemed destined to bring Lulu nothing but disappointment. There was no camaraderie here. Instead, Talice tried to put herself above Lulu.

And sure, yeah, she was. Fine. She’d been in the Conspiracy longer. She’d been around longer. But out here that didn’t amount to fucking anything.

The disappointment Lulu felt was heavy. She couldn’t salvage this, she realized. Talice had waltzed in and decided she was an enemy and she wouldn’t be dissuaded from it, despite Lulu’s best efforts. So she would stop trying.

It was petty how she acted. Terribly petty, honestly. Horribly, terribly petty. She’d salvage some kind of win from the day with a victory that definitely wasn’t moral but was certainly satisfying, in a bitter, consolatory way. She’d earned Talice’s ire, in the end.

Later, she’d think on how she wasn’t happy with it. She’d wrestle with regrets, while holding stolen papers. She’d think on how different things might have been.

But before that she got laid, and that, at least, was something.

**Author's Note:**

> in the words of my beta reader, cavatica, "the classic dilemma: am I feeling gay or am I feeling like I'm about to be assassinated"
> 
> Additional note: All dialogue here is a one-to-one representation of what was said in the podcast. I didn't change any of it.


End file.
